


A Sacrifice that satisfied

by Nordlichter



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aftermath, Big Sisters, Dystopia, Empire, Family, Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Moon, Plot Twists, Science, Self-Sacrifice, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters, Technology, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:17:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nordlichter/pseuds/Nordlichter
Summary: I grew up with seven siblings and could not imagine it any other way.I grew up without a mother and could not imagine it any other way.I grew up after the fall of the human empire and could not imagine it any other way.





	A Sacrifice that satisfied

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my native language so please bear with me.

I grew up with seven siblings and could not imagine it any other way.  
I grew up without a mother and could not imagine it any other way.  
I grew up after the fall of the human empire and could not imagine it any other way.  
My ancestor’s age had been the age of prosperity and progress followed by my age, the age of terror. Father told us sometimes of the ages we have never known. Most of his stories felt like fantasy, but there was one thing I would have loved to see. He called it “the moon”. It was an orb that shined by night. To the question of why the moon was gone he responded that it was hit by a missile long before I was born.

The memory of this moment was running through my head as I approached my father in his bedroom. He turned around, startled by the sound his Bible made as I placed it beside him on the bed. “Thank you, but I allowed you to keep it until Cathy will have learned how to read”, he said and turned around to face me. “Cathy reads almost fluently” I informed him.  
“You managed to teach your sister how to read and write in less than two months?”  
I simply nodded.  
I could not have known that father had made his decision at this very moment.

Father turned around again and faced the streets of our city. Destruction and poverty prospered everywhere. An eternity or twenty years ago mankind had been at the peak of success. Science and technology were flourishing, but one day, they stepped too far. They did things they were able to do but should not have done, and so it all ended in a devastating war. Most of the survivors had sought refuge in the city we are living in. War still continued outside the protective walls, outside lived the devil with his worshippers.

“Our life is getting harder every day”, my father said as looked at me. “I do not even know how to afford the most essential things. We can only survive if I make hard decisions! There are merchants who take people outside the city,” father explained.  
“Only barbarians dwell outside this city. People who became destructive after the fall of society or insane after the war”, I uttered, well aware of the direction this conversation was going to take. My father continued: “They sell these people to the highest bidder,” my father continued. “For the sake of our family, one of you must go. One of my precious daughters must go, knowing that her sacrifice would buy the others some time. You are my eldest; the smartest of us all, and in the old world you would have been a brilliant mind. For my shame I have always loved you the most. That is why I beg you to take this burden from my shoulders. Go to your sisters and together you choose someone who has to go. I put all my trust in you that you make the right decision,” he instructed me.  
Father knew that I had made my decision that moment.

I stepped into my sisters’ bedroom and woke them. I was like a mother to them, especially to the younger ones and there was nothing I would not have done for them.  
When everybody was awake, we all picked a match. The one with the dead match would have to go. I had told them a sweet, sweet lie before, instead of the truth. I knew from the beginning that my match was burned. I had made sure it was.

It was completely dark outside when I returned to my father. “We did a lottery and I was the unlucky one who was chosen,” I reported only half of the truth to my father. He nodded sadly. “I want you to know that it causes me great pains to sell you into this life”, he apologized. “It also has its benefits,” I whispered, barely audible. “If my sisters can live in a better world one day I’ am more than willing to make this sacrifice.”  
I could not have known that father was satisfied by the outcome of the events.

The merchants collected me the next morning and brought me to their transportation. I was asleep when we passed the border, but when I woke up at the other side of the wall, I was shocked. There was a new sky above me and all the people around me lived in an age of prosperity and progress.

Today I know that father was satisfied by the outcome of the events.


End file.
